In addition to the start of construction in the new park, a lot of other things have been happening in the neighborhood in the last few months, and it’s time for a quick rundown on a few of them. Let’s start with some job changes that may affect us.

Both of our veteran area reporters, Karen Groves with YourHub.com and Megan Quinn with the Arvada Press, are moving onto new assignments elsewhere in the metro area. Each has covered Arvada for many years and both have been valuable assets for our neighborhoods. Coverage of the community gardens, the reconstruction of the Garrison Street park, various community events, charitable activities and new businesses have helped tie our community together over that time.

Karen will be covering Golden and is being replaced by Heather Sackett in Arvada. Heather has been a YourHub reporter covering Douglas County. She can be reached at 303-954-2457 or at hsackett@denverpost.com (@YHHeather on Twitter). Megan is moving to an assignment in Broomfield and the paper has not yet decided on a replacement, but Arvada Press editor Mikkel Kelly will be the contact person for local news coverage until they do. Mr Kelly can be reached at 279-5541 ext 232 or at mkelly@ourcoloradonews .

News coverage by the City of Arvada will be changing too. The City will soon be hiring a new public information officer to replace Maria Vanderkolk who resigned last year. Susan Medina of the Arvada Police Department has been filling in for her while still handling her duties as the Arvada PD’s spokesperson. Despite stiff qualification requirements, the City received over a hundred applications to fill the vacancy. Whomever we get should be pretty good. Our new City public information officer is expected to be skilled in the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter as well as the more traditional news outlets the City has such as the Arvada Report, the news bulletins that regularly pop up on Arvada.org and the City’s official press releases.

And that’s not the only important vacancy to be filled at City Hall. When he started his job last year, the new Manager found that he had 14 employees on the City staff reporting directly to him. A more usual number for an upper management position would be only five or six direct supervisions.

Mr Deven plans to hire an additional Deputy City Manager to spread out the management responsibility and workload. He’ll be using the vacancy created when long-time Director of Public Works, Jim Root, retired last year. And, again, over a hundred applications to fill the new slot have been received in response to the job posting.

Things will be changing too at the Arvada Police Department. Chief Don Wick plans to adopt a new management plan that pushes responsibility down to lower levels within the Arvada PD. It’s called Sector Command. It’s simply a community-based policing approach that relies less on the more traditional hierarchical and centralized command structure the Arvada PD and many other police departments have used over the years. The new management plan is loaded with performance tracking measures so that the City and the public can see how well the Department is doing over time. You can read more about the Sector Command structure by following the PowerPoint link at the bottom of these notes.

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Why Are We Here?

There are no secrets here. The idea for a Citizens for a Livable Ralston Community
neighborhood association started with a suggestion by Arvada City Councilor Shelley
Cook to two local residents, T.O. Owens and John Kiljan. We were two of a number of
local residents who thought that the City was moving too fast on its redevelopment plans
for the North Jeffco Community Park. Ms Cook's suggestion was that local community
members would have more say in influencing public policy of we could organize, even if
it were just a loose organization.
Starting up any neighborhood association is a lot of work. If you don't believe that,
volunteer with us to distribute organizational fliers on a windy day, or write a few articles
or news reports on items of neighborhood community interest -- not to mention the effort
in setting up and maintaining a website.
We did not want to make that kind of effort if it were only to provide feedback on the
park. Other community issues are on the horizon including the reconstruction of Ralston
Road from Olde Town to Kipling and the integration of AURA's plans for the renewal of
the Triangle shopping district. After some discussion, we decided to make the attempt
only if the association were designed to cover broader community-development issues.
The suggestion for the name, Citizens for a Livable Ralston Community, came from RTD
board member, Lorraine Anderson.